


the better part of valor

by the_ragnarok



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Leashes, M/M, Master/Pet, Multi, Muzzles, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Relationship Negotiation, alphas are enslaved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 10:36:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/pseuds/the_ragnarok
Summary: In which Grace volunteers in alpha rescue group, Harold is an omega who's suspicious about alphas but comes around, and John is the happiest most adoring pet rescue alpha ever.





	the better part of valor

"You should know I have an alpha," Grace says, halfway through their first date.

Harold tenses. He's been expecting this conversation, or a variant on it: usually betas wanted to know if he had a habit of mating with alphas, or to let him know that they'd be willing to go along with Harold doing so, provided they got to watch.

For some reason, despite only a minuscule percentage of omegas regularly mating with alphas, people considered this to be an inevitability.

"Yes?" Harold inquires. Better to get this part of the conversation over with. Pity: it was a very enjoyable date so far.

"I know they get a bad rep," Grace says, "but he's a sweetie. Wouldn't hurt a fly, unless the fly tried to mug me." She grins sheepishly. "I've had him for five years now. He's family to me. If that's a deal breaker to you, I'd rather know now."

Harold blinks. "Have you had to end other relationships over him?" he asks.

Grace winces. "People would refuse to come to my house. It was awkward."

"I'd say," Harold says faintly. In a spurt of honesty, he says, "Do you know, I've never been in the same room with an alpha?"

"What, never?" Grace says, incredulous. "Well, you're missing out. I've worked with them for years, and for the most part, they're very gentle actually. Just protective of their homes and families."

Until their food gets to the table, Grace tells Harold all about her work with the alpha rescue society. "People will get one, never socialize or train them and then just - abandon them when they're too territorial or aggressive." She throws her arms. "I tell people, if you tied a beta or an omega to a pole in the yard and never talked to them, they'd be antisocial too."

"Is that what happened to your alpha?" Harold says, appalled and curious despite himself.

Grace grimaces. "No, it was worse for him. I probably shouldn't go into his history at the dinner table. I can show you his picture, though." Her face looks so bright and hopeful that Harold can't refuse.

The picture isn't much like the pictures of alphas Harold has seen: the alpha is shirtless, but he's wearing pants and staring up at the camera, grinning. "He's very handsome," Harold says. It's not untrue.

"Isn't he just?" Grace coos a little at the picture, then closes her phone. "His name is John, he's the absolute sweetest."

Once the food arrives, they discuss other matters: art, and travel, and philosophy. Talking with Grace is practically effortless. He makes her laugh frequently, and every time he does he is filled with shivery warmth.

When the bill arrives, Harold is seized by an uncharacteristic indecision. All his dates so far ended at this point, with polite ceremony and finality: Harold had not had many second dates.

"Let me pay," Grace says, holding his gaze and smiling. "We can go to your place for coffee, if you want? And continue our conversation."

The social signal is obvious enough that even Harold can decipher it. He nods, and finds himself a little sad for knowing it. He would have liked to literally continue their conversation over coffee - loved it, in fact. He's not averse to more carnal pursuits, but he cherishes having an easy conversational partner much more than a sexual one.

~~

They talk until 2AM. It is not a euphemism.

In the morning, Harold is almost giddy despite the bags under his eyes. They already scheduled another date before parting.

"I find it easier," Grace confessed to him. "If you don't want to, of course--"

"Of course I want to, don't be absurd," Harold said, and whipped out his phone to browse his calendar.

Nathan whistles when he sees Harold. "Good date?"

Harold answers with a small, enigmatic smile. "I hope you had a good evening," he tells Nathan. "Now, let's discuss the issue with the Evergreen project...."

~~

For their second date, they go to a museum. For the third date, Grace suggests the park.

"I thought you might like to get to know John," she said, frankly. "If you don't, that's perfectly within your rights, but..."

"You'd rather know sooner than later. Of course." Harold can't deny the same is true for him. If Grace's pet is... too much for him, in any way, it is better to know this before parting from her becomes painful.

(On their last date they kissed, sweet and chaste, an act which warmed Harold from the crown of his head to his fingertips. Grace retreated, and gave a peal of delighted laughter to see him blushing, then grabbed his hands and kissed those, too. It might be too late already.)

"Would Thursday be good for you?" Harold says. If the next date reveals an incompatibility, Grace's answering smile would make a good parting memory.

~~

"Goodness, he's tall," Harold says faintly. All of Grace's pictures of John showed him on hands and knees, or lying down. Looking up at him is odd.

John makes a small sound, muffled through his muzzle. Grace pats his head. "Shh, sweetie, you're fine. Harold is just surprised."

"I am," Harold confirms. John's hair looks soft, and after darting a look at Grace and having her answer with a nod, Harold cautiously pats John as well.

John makes a second noise, a distinctly pleased one. Grace tugs his leash to make him bend, and kisses his cheek. "Is it all right to let him off the leash?"

"It _is_ an off-leash park," Harold says, determined to be brave.

To his surprise, John presses close to Grace and whines when she tries to take off his leash. "All right, sweetheart, we don't have to," Grace says.

They sit down at a bench, and John kneels at Grace's feet, resting his cheek on her thigh. "He likes to stay close sometimes," she says. To John, she says, "It's fine. We're here to do what you like, sweetie, and if what you like is to stay close, then that's what we'll do."

When she speaks to John, Grace's voice takes on a tender tone that Harold finds rather endearing.

"Do you know," she says to Harold, "he insisted on wearing the muzzle today? Wouldn't leave the house until I put it on him. I think he wants to make a good impression. Aren't you such a good boy," she coos, "so careful not to scare off my new friends?"

John closes his eyes and pushes his head up at Grace's petting hands. Harold can see muscles flexing in John's arms, and the utter joy on his face as Grace touches him.

"Can you tell me how you got him?" he asks, on a whim. "That is, if it's not too upsetting to share."

"Oh, I don't mind if you don't, it's all long gone and he's safe now, aren't you, sweetie?" She vigorously scritches John behind the ears. "It's not a pretty story, though."

"I gathered," Harold says. He takes Grace's free hand in his. "I would be interested to hear it, nevertheless."

Grace is right: it's not a pretty story. "He used to be part of a fighting ring," she says grimly. "They used a shock collar to keep him obedient between fights, and starved him so he'd be vicious. They used blood and pheromones to set off his instincts, and tied him up in barbed wire to watch him struggle."

Harold watches John, only whines a bit when Grace's voice trembles. Harold squeezes her hand. "But now you have him," he says, soothing.

"Yeah." Grace smiles. "He came into the rescue - you'd think he'd be aggressive, but he wasn't, he was just apathetic. Wouldn't eat or drink. He was tired of fighting, the poor thing." She strokes John's nape in long motions. "I sat with him and talked to him, and fed him by hand until he got stronger. The only time I ever saw a hint of aggression from him was when he thought someone was threatening me, or the pups at the rescue center."

John flops around, sitting on his butt and arching his back backwards. Grace chuckles and bends to rub his belly.

They sit in silence for a while. Finally, John looks up at a couple of alphas jogging around the park. Grace unhooks John's collar and he takes off to join them, graceful on his feet.

"Thank you," Grace tells Harold.

"What for?"

"For being willing to meet him." Grace makes a face. "And not asking me if I adopted him as a sex thing."

Harold is startled into laughter. "I suppose I should thank you for not assuming I'm eager to mate with him."

"Of course not," Grace says, and cuddles close to Harold. "He's very shy about mating, anyway. I wouldn't assume he'd be interested in anyone just because I was dating them, omega or not."

When John comes back from his jog, he kneels just a little bit closer to Harold. Grace says, "Would you like to pet him? Here." She shows Harold how to hold his hand where John can see it, let John decide to come to him for petting. John slowly moves to kneel where Grace and Harold's legs are tangled, joyously allowing both Harold and Grace to stroke him.

~~

Following on that, it seems silly not to visit Grace's house.

Harold enjoys Grace's house: it's well-lit, and Grace's gift for beauty manifests itself not just in her art, but in the arrangement of her living space. Harold's best efforts could simply not compete.

It's nice to spend time in her house, chatting on the couch with John at their feet asking to be pet. Cozy.

The only problem is that Harold would quite like to do more than hold Grace's hand and kiss her, and he's not sure how to bring this up. It seems rude somehow, especially since Grace isn't making any such overtures herself.

Harold has lost count of the number of evenings he went home confusedly aroused and feeling like he was breaking some unspoken rule by feeling so. Perhaps it would be best if Grace and he were simply friends. Or perhaps Grace was disinterested in sex, which is perfectly valid, of course.

All things considered, leaving early seems to be the better part of valor. So Harold works on standing up and making his goodbyes.

"You're leaving already?" Grace seems somewhat distraught. "I hope I haven't made you uncomfortable."

"Not in the least," Harold says. If anything, he's a little too comfortable here in this warm room, and he'd rather go before he lets his hopes up to be dashed.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when a deep, raspy voice asks, "Then why are you leaving?"

"Oh goodness," Harold says weakly when he sees John sitting up. "I didn't realize you could talk."

John shrugged. "Didn't have much to say." His blue eyes are very penetrating.

Oh, dear. Possibly that's not the best word to use under the circumstances. Harold clears his throat and tries to come up with an explanation.

John surprises him by speaking again. "If I'm ruining the mood, I can go in my crate." He moves away from them, to a cage in the corner of the room that Harold has seen him take naps in before.

It seems incredibly discourteous to ask someone who can speak to shut himself in a cage so that Harold can be amorous.

"Don't be silly, John," Grace says. "I have a perfectly good bedroom." She looks up at Harold, face charmingly pink.

Harold feels himself flushing to match her. "Perhaps I should see it," he says. "Just to satisfy my curiosity, you see."

He thinks he hears a soft snort as they leave the room, but perhaps John is only napping again.

~~

In retrospect, Harold has no idea what took them so long. Sex with Grace flows as naturally as conversation: she shows him where she likes to be touched, and he does the same, and they do. There's nothing at all to be intimidated by.

"I didn't want to push," Grace confesses after they're spent, lying in his arms. "You hear about betas doing all sort of things to omegas. I didn't want to be one of those people."

"You aren't in the least," Harold promises her, and kisses the top of her head.

Intimacy is easy, with Grace, once the cat is out of the bag. So easy that Harold only realizes he's perhaps out of bounds when both of them are half undressed on her living room couch.

"Should we--?" he says, tentatively.

"He won't bother us," Grace promises. "Now take off my pants."

John goes to his crate during these sessions, which worries Harold a tiny bit. "Won't he feel abandoned?" he asks Grace.

"You could ask him," Grace says, wryly. "John, are you feeling abandoned?"

John pads out of his crate - Grace and Harold have finished and replaced their clothing by now - and rests his cheek on Grace's lap. He seems perfectly content.

~~

The crate isn't the only thing that seems odd, now that Harold thinks of John as a being who can speak for himself.

Had Harold thought about this in advance, he would have expected the kneeling and crawling - and the occasional muzzling or leashing - to seem uncomfortable, but John is so at home in his body that it seems perfectly natural for him to shuffle around on hands and knees, or curl up on the floor for a nap.

No, what's truly odd is that Harold's awareness of John has shifted.

John, not to belabor the point, is attractive.

It's not just his muscles, which Harold noticed the very first time they met, albeit at the time Harold did not consider them a potential point of attraction. It's not just John's beautiful blue eyes, or the grace of his movements.

Perhaps there's something to all that evolutionary garbage and Harold is simply responding to an alpha.

~~

That hypothesis, at least, is easily tested: he asks Grace if he might visit her alpha rescue group with her. Grace is delighted. Her enthusiasm alone makes the excursion worthwhile. Harold anticipates it being an educational opportunity as well.

The rescue is a low building with a large grassy yard. A handful of alphas are in the yard when Grace opens the gate, and they all look up at the sound of Harold and Grace's footsteps. One alpha approaches and whines at Grace until she fishes a cookie out of her bag for him. "Don't forget to tell Ms. Hopkins," Grace says to the alpha as he stuffs his face.

The alpha makes a reply that a mouthful of cookie renders unintelligible, then runs off. He's barely more than a pup, even Harold can see that

"This is Sean," Grace tells him. "Sean, this is Harold." Sean nods, clearly more interested in cookies than in the new visitor.

The other alphas are older, and - for the most part - scarred. Harold wonders how many of them were rescued from fates similar to John's.

"That's SJ over there," Grace says, pointing at an alpha with close-cropped dark hair and a full beard. Harold blinks: John must shave himself, or Grace must shave him. That had not occurred to him before. "SJ's shy, but he's sweet. Over there that's Kate," indicating a small, scowling alpha, eyeing Harold with suspicion, "and those three are Martja, Alan, and Paul." Said three are tangled together in something between a cuddle pile and a mock fight.

Grace leads Harold to a bench. The afternoon is pleasant, and the alphas appear to be enjoying it. Every so often, one of them approaches Grace to be petted or to make pleading eyes at her until she produces a cookie. The second time Kyle asks for a cookie, Grace flicks his nose gently, and he huffs and lopes away.

All the alphas stop by them sooner or later. The last to come is SJ, who also isn't joining the others for play. Harold barely sees him move, but somehow every time Harold looks, SJ is mysteriously closer to them.

Finally, SJ is right next to them, looking at where Kate is chasing Paul.

"Would you like a cookie, SJ?" Grace says.

It takes SJ long moments to turn around. When he does, though, he takes the cookie and tells Grace, "Thank you," in a deep gravelly voice. He eats it slowly, still looking at the other alphas.

When SJ has retreated again, Grace quietly says, "He was kept forcibly stripped and muzzled. He doesn't talk much, but it's important to him to be able to."

"Thank you," Harold tells Grace later, when they go home.

"It was no trouble," she says, pleased.

"Not just for organizing the visit," Harold says. "I never thought I'd be able to be surrounded by alphas and," he struggles with the words, "feel safe. More than that: feel for them anything other than fear."

Grace's answering smile is a thing of beauty. She squeezes his hand. "I just wish more people would give them a chance, you know?"

Harold waits until he gets home to further consider his other cause for gratitude. He wanted an answer, and he got one: not one of the alphas he met today moved him the way John does. He felt sympathy, perhaps some spark of affection towards Sean and SJ. The thought of interacting with them sexually is ludicrous.

~~

Grace asked him to come at six, but Harold is a little early. He hums under his breath as he rings her doorbell.

"It's open!" Grace yells from inside. 

The kitchen and living room are empty, so Harold follows the sound of splashing to the bathroom's open door. 

John is in the tub, hair sticking up in spikes. Grace is sitting on a stool next to the bath and laughing: she has a bubble perched on the edge of her nose, and it bursts just as Harold notices it. Her forearms are covered in soap.

John turns around and grins when he spots Harold, sitting up with a splash that soaks through Grace's clothes. She doesn't seem to mind very much.

All Harold can think, rather stupidly, is _John is naked and wet_. The way Grace's wet shirt is clinging to her skin is only making it worse.

"I'll wait in the living room," Harold blurts, and turns away.

Behind him, he hears John's uncertain whine, and Grace's soothing voice. He can't parse her words through the blood rushing in his ears. He should go back and apologize, he knows, but it's all he can do to keep from leaving the apartment altogether.

By the time Grace comes to the living room, Harold has had some time to compose himself. "I'm sorry," he tells her. 

Brow creased, Grace says, "I'm more interested in an explanation than an apology." She approaches him tentatively. "Are you upset at the sudden nudity? I would've shut the door if I'd known you were coming."

Harold hesitates. It's tempting to take the out she's offering him. "Upset," he says, "isn't quite the right word."

John takes that moment to come into the living room. He's dressed - shirt, too, although the top few buttons are undone, and his feet are bare. He stands by the kitchen door, as unobtrusive as anyone his size can be. His hair is still wet, a drop falling off it and rolling down his neck. Harold follows it before averting his eyes, shocked at himself.

"Oh," Grace says.

The silence in the room is heavy and unbearable. Harold can't bring himself to look either Grace or John in the eye. What they must think of him, after all John's been through, for Harold to display interest in him like the rankest of porn cliches....

John breaks the silence with a small, rusted noise. Harold flinches.

"Right," Grace says, and clears her throat. "Okay. Let's break this down: it's okay to have feelings and desires, and nobody needs to do anything they're not comfortable with. All right?"

Harold looks up at her, suddenly dizzy with love and admiration for her. "Of course," he says.

Grace goes to John and draws him close, encouraging him to lay his head on her shoulder. He winds up bent in a way that can't be comfortable, but his expression - as much of it as Harold can see at this angle - is peaceful. Grace cards her fingers through John's hair and gives Harold a significant look. 

She has a point. "I've found myself... interested in John," Harold says, feeling silly. "Needless to say, both of you are important to me, and if the idea bothers either of you--"

"It doesn't," Grace says, with authority. "Not on its own. John, sweetie, I think we're going to need for you to use your words."

John lifts his head to glare at her weakly. Grace is unmoved by this.

After a moment, John says, "I want him." Then he buries his face back in Grace's shoulder. 

"Perhaps we could move this to the couch?" Grace suggests. "No reason to be uncomfortable while we're talking."

Grace's couch is soft, and so is John's hair under Harold's hand. Grace's hair tickles his nose. She smells like chamomile. 

"You've been very brave," Grace tells John, "saying what you want out loud. And so were you," she tells Harold. 

Harold grimaces, but he's not about to argue the point with her. "I am very happy," he says, truthfully. "I will be happy if we never do anything we haven't up till now."

Under his hand, John tenses minutely. 

"Got it," Grace says dryly. "But since it seems like everyone here supports you two getting it on, we can take that as read and keep going." 

"I suppose so," Harold says. John exhales and loses some of that tension.

"Okay, party game," Grace declares. "Everybody names something they want. It can be anything, but it has to be a concrete action. No vagueness allowed."

Harold frowns. "This seems unfair to John," he says. 

"I believe in him." Grace ruffles John's hair. "And how about I start? I'd like to watch the two of you kiss."

The idea of kissing John is appealing, moreso with Grace's benevolent eye on them. John is looking up at him, tentative: Harold says, "I'd like that," and John rises.

Grace intercepts John and makes eye contact. "Remember: we all only want you to do things you want for yourself. Is this something you want to do?"

John answers by pushing towards Harold, landing a soft kiss on Harold's lips. 

It's brief, almost a peck. It still leaves him dazed. "I'd like to kiss your neck," he tells John, who looks at Grace, nods, then tilts his head in invitation.

John's skin is warm under his lips, and soft. Harold can feel the rapid heartbeat thrumming beneath the surface. He keeps the kisses gentle and quick, then retreats, enjoying the flushed, dazzled look on John's face. 

When Harold retreats, John trembles and stays in place. "You're doing wonderfully," Grace tells both of them, beaming. "Now, John, your turn."

John looks between Grace and Harold. Then he looks down at Harold's lap, and obviously - if crudely - mimes sucking his cock. Harold makes a noise.

So does Grace, who has blotches of bright colors in her cheeks. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," John says. "Are you?" Once both of them have choked out their yeses, he undoes Harold's pants. Harold's hard. He can _smell_ John, clean musk cutting through the scent of soap, and it's going straight to his lizard brain. 

Faced with Harold's erection, John pauses. Grace runs a hand through his hair. "It's okay if you're not sure, or if you change your mind, or if you need to stop."

John nods, exhales, and takes Harold's dick in his mouth.

Harold gasps. John's mouth feels preternaturally hot. His teeth scrape gently along Harold's shaft, and he's not quite sucking. Rather, John is holding Harold in his mouth, keeping him warm. 

It's not quite enough to make him come. "Are we still playing?" he asks. 

"If you want to," Grace says. John hums, and Harold shivers.

"If you would be so kind," he tells Grace, and puts her hand on his chest. Fortunately, she doesn't take him to task for being vague, but pinches his nipple through his shirt the way she knows he enjoys. He moans and thanks her. "I hope you're not feeling - _ah_ \- left out?"

"Not at all," Grace reassures him, and twists his nipple that much harder.

"John." He scrambles to grab John's shoulders. "I'm about to come."

John's mouth only tightens around him, sucking inexpertly. It's enough for Harold to go off, gasping as he does. John lays his head on Harold's thigh, his expression radiating satisfaction.

Harold strokes him. "I think it's your turn to say what you'd like," he says. "Either one of you, I lost track."

John shrugs, boneless.

Harold stares at him. "John, did you come?"

John looks up at him and blinks. He shrugs again. 

"Words, John," Grace says. 

"I don't need to," John says. "You came. That's enough."

Harold looks at him, then at Grace, uncertain. "Do you mean you would rather not come? Or that it doesn't matter to you?"

"Latter," John says, and lays his head back on Harold's thigh. He does grab Harold's hand and lay it on his nape, pushing his head up until Harold pets him. 

"Well, I'd like to touch you, if that's alright," Harold says. John turns his face and raises an eyebrow. "Oh, all right. I'd like to touch your cock, and make you come, if I can and if you'd enjoy it."

There's no mistaking the way John shivers under his hand. And yet, when he looks up, John seems strangely shy. He looks at Grace before standing up, hesitating with his hands over his pants buttons.

"It's alright," Grace says. "It's fine to take your clothes off, Harold just asked you to and you know I don't mind you naked. If you need to put them on again, you can do that. You're always allowed to put on clothes, or to stop touching. Harold doesn't want to hurt you, and he'll stop any time you ask. Won't you?" The look she gives Harold is steely.

"Of course," Harold says, slightly dazed.

"And you won't hurt Harold," Grace continues. "If Harold wants to stop, he'll say so, and you'll stop. I know you will." She stands and reaches to grab John's head, kissing his forehead when he bends for her. 

Grace's reassurances aren't lost on Harold, either. He finds them quite helpful when John opens his pants and Harold almost flinches away. He'd assumed that what he knew of alpha dimensions had to be pornographically exaggerated; either it isn't or John is extraordinarily well endowed. 

It isn't that he fears John hurting him. Almost the opposite: Harold feels his body opening as he sees and handles John's member, a disquieting automatic reaction. Harold doesn't appreciate feeling like a slave to his biology.

He tightens his hand around John's cock without thinking, and John whimpers. "Shh," Harold says, gentling his grip. "Shh, I've got you."

John thrusts into his hands - Harold finds he has to use both to properly support John's length and girth - and Harold gives himself over to how tender John's skin is, how lost John sounds while Harold is handling him. 

John comes all over him, without warning. Harold sighs and resigns himself to an awkward morning at the dry cleaner's. It's not really enough to dampen his mood.

~~

Harold already knew that when he did not stay over, John often shared Grace's bed. Now the three of them lie together, Harold and Grace each laying their head on one of John's shoulders, speaking to each other across John's chest. John himself gives every appearance of sleep, although Harold isn't sure he trusts it: John's surprised him before. 

"I suppose I might as well ask," Harold says. "Does this mean you and John are intimately involved?"

"Well, we are. We don't have sex, though, is what I guess you're asking," Grace says.

Harold blinks.

Grace snorts. "Harold, I give him baths and he gives me relationship advice even though he hates talking. How is that not intimate?"

"I stand corrected," Harold says, wry. "And it wouldn't bother you to....?" he gestures between himself and John. 

Grace makes a thoughtful noise. "It really depends," she says. "I mean, I am, but what I'll need to stay okay depends on how we're going to handle this. Do you guys want me to keep being an intermediary? Are you going to resent it if I'm not up for mediating when you feel like hanky panky?"

"I hope I'll be able to learn from you," Harold says, "to reassure John when necessary. And - myself," he adds, halting. 

Grace squirms close to kiss Harold, shallow and quick and pleased. "I'd quite like that," she says. "Oh: thank you. For letting me see you all vulnerable, I mean. It was quite something." She blushes. 

Harold considers noting to her that they've had sex, but he has a feeling she'd point out it's not the same, and that he'd be forced to agree with her. 

~~

The park is all but abandoned at this hour. John and Harold walk companionably, John's leash held loose in Harold's hand. 

John guides them towards a bench before Harold notices he's getting tired, and leans on Harold unsubtly until Harold gives in and sits down. He grimaces - the bench is wet with dew - but stays where he is.

It seems like an ideal time for something he's been meaning to bring up. He clears his throat. "John - I wanted to ask you." A pang of conscience hits him. "Although perhaps we'd better wait until Grace was with us..."

John makes a curious sound, and headbutts Harold's shoulder. Harold chuckles and scratches John's neck for a long few minutes.

"I'm due for a heat soon," Harold says. As soon as the word _heat_ comes across his lips, John goes as taut as a violin string. "Usually I handle them myself, but I thought, if you were amenable...." He trails off, looking at John. "I'm afraid I'll need you to be verbal. I'm not the mind reader Grace is."

"I'm amenable," John says, voice raspy. "Also scared shitless. But I want to."

Harold hugs him then, unable to resist. John clings to him. "We can have Grace with us, if she doesn't mind," he says. "We can talk about it and try to make sure nothing is unexpected. We can have contingencies. And we really don't have to."

John shakes under his hands. "What if I hurt you?"

"You won't," Harold says firmly. Harold, who six months ago would never have allowed himself to be alone in a room with an alpha, let alone offer to spend a heat with one. "You won't."


End file.
